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Themepark is not an MMO for me, it is just a single player game with a campaign where you follow quests and reach level cap in 3 days alone. After finishing the campaign, you just go to play the multiplayer content in instanced rooms just for fun, doing these same rooms over and over forever, just like Call of Duty. I just play Call of Duty or Battlefield when I want something like this instead of wasting my time in a single-player/multiplayer game disguised as MMO.

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Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

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I think EQ is neither, but that's a discussion for another thread. UO was a clear example of a sandbox MMO.

If you want to compare and see the differences, compare with UO.

The mistake that many make, less options and features doesn't make an MMORPG a true sandbox MMO. Providing player tools for creating player content and giving the players the freedom to use them, that's what MMO's that lean towards the sandbox style gameplay offer, where players have a larger influence on their environments ingame.

I know this is a bit late for quoteing this but I just wanted to give an example for the argument you just gave. Any one here still use second life?

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Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

If your looking for a mix between the two id say eve online is more than just a fine prime example of this.

While there are safe zones you can go around that some wuld call theme park were all you gotta worry about is just few npc pirates round asteroids once your outside of the safe zones into the bigger universe its all hands on deck sandbox wise were anything can and has happend between players clans and alliances.

Take one wrong jumpgate and you could end up in the middle of a massive jumpgate battle between alliances when you emerge

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If your looking for a mix between the two id say eve online is more than just a fine prime example of this.

Thats why i used EVE as an example. Even if EVE does some things very right, there are some obstacles:

- EVE has no Avatars ( your ship is your avatar, even after the latest cosmetic changes about avatars)

- EVE has no Planets, its pure Space-Sci Fi (think about Lucas would have given the Star Wars IP to CCP)

- EVE is not Fantasy (obviously SciFi is less popular than expected)

- The Empire is not fully safe (high-sec ganking is still an issue for a lot of potential customers)

- The PVE-content is rather lame (even better and more diversified PVE content would be unfamiliar, due to the different loot-structure in a sandbox; but thats the price you have to pay)

- The UI could be more user-friendly (which is hard to do, looking to the complexity of a world-simulation; again there is a price for a sandpark)

- The Tutorial could be extended (what they actually do)

So my conclusion is: based on the EVE-model, which is in its core a sandbox, a sandpark would be possible. But you have to pay a price for this integration. A lot of elements of a standard-themepark like low complexity / short learning curve, clear guidance, instant gratification or safety everywhere is not possible, without hurting the core sandbox.

I doubt, that this approach will work vice versa, if taking a theme-park and adding sandbox-elements. The problem is, sandbox is not defined by single features or elements. Sandbox means core design principles, like player driven (economy, politics, ...), complex world simulation via a bunch of tools and different sand, the ability to change the world, and so on. And this would be missing in such a "Themebox" still based on the the theme-park design principles in its core.

I am very convinced, that it is much more promising to take the core of a sandbox and add theme-park adventures wisely, instead of doing it vice versa.

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- The Empire is not fully safe (high-sec ganking is still an issue for a lot of potential customers)

- The PVE-content is rather lame (even better and more diversified PVE content would be unfamiliar, due to the different loot-structure in a sandbox; but thats the price you have to pay)

- The UI could be more user-friendly (which is hard to do, looking to the complexity of a world-simulation; again there is a price for a sandpark)

If you're looking for three reasons EVE has remained so niche, look no further than this.

I love sandboxes, and I've attempted -- seriously -- to get into EVE about, oh, 10 times over the last 6-7 years. The above are all reasons I didn't stay, although I would say that the middle one is the biggest. I can only grind mirror-missions for so long before I start tearing my hair out.

However, I'd like to add one more issue with EVE. And that is the skill progression system. While oldschool players from the early days love it, the skill system in EVE is unbelievably daunting for new players, particularly after you start looking into serious skill plans and realize it could take upwards (or even over) a year of playing to get close to where you want to be.

This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the old players are still gaining skills... so, in a very real way, you can never, ever catch up. It's kind of like standing at the bottom of Mt. Everest and looking up at someone who has just passed the Hillary Step. You say to yourself "wow, I can get there!" and you leap onto the first cliff. Problem is, the mountain is GROWING TALLER at the same rate you're climbing. After weeks at it, you start to realize the futility of it all.

"Man," you say. "I can set benchmarks and reach those... but I can never get to the top. Never. Why bother?"

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Oh, hello again, old faithful thread.

Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

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Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

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If your looking for a mix between the two id say eve online is more than just a fine prime example of this.

Thats why i used EVE as an example. Even if EVE does some things very right, there are some obstacles:

- EVE has no Avatars ( your ship is your avatar, even after the latest cosmetic changes about avatars)

- EVE has no Planets, its pure Space-Sci Fi (think about Lucas would have given the Star Wars IP to CCP)

- EVE is not Fantasy (obviously SciFi is less popular than expected)

- The Empire is not fully safe (high-sec ganking is still an issue for a lot of potential customers)

- The PVE-content is rather lame (even better and more diversified PVE content would be unfamiliar, due to the different loot-structure in a sandbox; but thats the price you have to pay)

- The UI could be more user-friendly (which is hard to do, looking to the complexity of a world-simulation; again there is a price for a sandpark)

- The Tutorial could be extended (what they actually do)

So my conclusion is: based on the EVE-model, which is in its core a sandbox, a sandpark would be possible. But you have to pay a price for this integration. A lot of elements of a standard-themepark like low complexity / short learning curve, clear guidance, instant gratification or safety everywhere is not possible, without hurting the core sandbox.

I doubt, that this approach will work vice versa, if taking a theme-park and adding sandbox-elements. The problem is, sandbox is not defined by single features or elements. Sandbox means core design principles, like player driven (economy, politics, ...), complex world simulation via a bunch of tools and different sand, the ability to change the world, and so on. And this would be missing in such a "Themebox" still based on the the theme-park design principles in its core.

I am very convinced, that it is much more promising to take the core of a sandbox and add theme-park adventures wisely, instead of doing it vice versa.

On Avatars, yes we do have avatars now in the Captain's Quarters. This is a prototype for Walking In Stations, which was intended to have stations as fully interactable environments down to the option of players being able to open shops and the like inside. This was shelved so that CCP could focus on fixing some major issues with the core in-space gameplay which the players themselves preferred, but it is not shelved permanently. CCP has stated that they will return to this project when they can.

On Planets, we do have Planetary Interaction where you set up automated mining bases on planets, but if you're talking about directly walking on and interacting with a planet, that's coming through Dust 514.

Can't really argue about the non-Fantasy setting, obviously.

Empire Space not being fully safe adds some spice to the experience, and teaches you not to be dumb. Skittish players don't like this, but people looking for a challenge do (like myself) :)

PVE content being rather lame: I'll agree on this one for missions. Wormholes and incursions are better though, but still ultimately predictable. If you're looking for an epic quest chain to defeat a final uber-enemy...yeah, Eve doesn't have that. But this is why players usually try not to rely on the missions, they make their own goals and stories through their actions, particularly in Nullsec. But that's PvP-centered, not PvE.

UI being more user friendly...I honestly don't see what you find wrong with it. There are several dozen different functions that you can run in the game, and you have very quick access to them from the side menus. It functions a lot like a Windows menu system or desktop, right down to the point of being able to add "favorites" to the left menu bar of functions you use often. It's quick, it's easy, it's intuitive (at least for me), it's infinitely customizable...I really don't understand why people find it difficult to use.

On the Tutorials, they have improved them considerably as far as I know, but since it's been years since I've had to use them directly to learn stuff I can't really comment here.

I agree with you in the fact that you can't really add good sandbox features to a well-established themepark, it's better to start with a good core sandbox and add themepark elements if you need to (which sometimes you don't).

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Originally posted by Xzen

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

My ideal game right there.

You've got to be careful with that though. If the PvE guys are fully safe but can contribute to a player-run economy from the standard resource extraction and crafting system, that can very likely let the economy snowball out of control with product creation. Whether you like it or not, the fact that Empire Space is NOT fully safe in Eve actually helps keep the player run economy healthy and flowing, and helps keep too much uber pimped-out expensive crap from entering the game. Plus it helps you learn not to take stupid risks, and become a smarter player. I personally would not want an Eve-like game that had a 100% safe PvE location unless the resource extraction + crafting availble there was extremely limited (i.e. you could only build up to tech 1 cruisers and related tech, and only tech 1 mining ships, plus you would not be able to get all the types of ore you would need to build them purely from the "safe" sites).

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Originally posted by Kiljaedenas

Originally posted by Xzen

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

My ideal game right there.

You've got to be careful with that though. If the PvE guys are fully safe but can contribute to a player-run economy from the standard resource extraction and crafting system, that can very likely let the economy snowball out of control with product creation. Whether you like it or not, the fact that Empire Space is NOT fully safe in Eve actually helps keep the player run economy healthy and flowing, and helps keep too much uber pimped-out expensive crap from entering the game. Plus it helps you learn not to take stupid risks, and become a smarter player. I personally would not want an Eve-like game that had a 100% safe PvE location unless the resource extraction + crafting availble there was extremely limited (i.e. you could only build up to tech 1 cruisers and related tech, and only tech 1 mining ships, plus you would not be able to get all the types of ore you would need to build them purely from the "safe" sites).

You can make rare resources more abundant in low sec just like they do in EvE. You might have some miners in EvE that stick to high sec but they don't make nearly as much as people in mining ops in low sec.

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Originally posted by Xzen

Originally posted by Kiljaedenas

Originally posted by Xzen

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

My ideal game right there.

You've got to be careful with that though. If the PvE guys are fully safe but can contribute to a player-run economy from the standard resource extraction and crafting system, that can very likely let the economy snowball out of control with product creation. Whether you like it or not, the fact that Empire Space is NOT fully safe in Eve actually helps keep the player run economy healthy and flowing, and helps keep too much uber pimped-out expensive crap from entering the game. Plus it helps you learn not to take stupid risks, and become a smarter player. I personally would not want an Eve-like game that had a 100% safe PvE location unless the resource extraction + crafting availble there was extremely limited (i.e. you could only build up to tech 1 cruisers and related tech, and only tech 1 mining ships, plus you would not be able to get all the types of ore you would need to build them purely from the "safe" sites).

You can make rare resources more abundant in low sec just like they do in EvE. You might have some miners in EvE that stick to high sec but they don't make nearly as much as people in mining ops in low sec.

True, but high sec in Eve is not permanently safe which is a critical factor. If it was and players could mine/craft as much there as they do now simply by buying the required resources from the market and building whatever they bloody well feel like other than capital ships, the economy would get broken very fast. What I said mainly meant that if you did have an Eve-like game with the same level of crafting and hisec/nullsec space but the hisec area was 100% PvP-free, you would have to limit how much miners and crafters could do there to avoid breaking the economy, such as not being able to start a manufacturing job on anything beyond a tech 1 cruiser and relevant equipment.

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

My ideal game right there.

You've got to be careful with that though. If the PvE guys are fully safe but can contribute to a player-run economy from the standard resource extraction and crafting system, that can very likely let the economy snowball out of control with product creation. Whether you like it or not, the fact that Empire Space is NOT fully safe in Eve actually helps keep the player run economy healthy and flowing, and helps keep too much uber pimped-out expensive crap from entering the game. Plus it helps you learn not to take stupid risks, and become a smarter player. I personally would not want an Eve-like game that had a 100% safe PvE location unless the resource extraction + crafting availble there was extremely limited (i.e. you could only build up to tech 1 cruisers and related tech, and only tech 1 mining ships, plus you would not be able to get all the types of ore you would need to build them purely from the "safe" sites).

You can make rare resources more abundant in low sec just like they do in EvE. You might have some miners in EvE that stick to high sec but they don't make nearly as much as people in mining ops in low sec.

True, but high sec in Eve is not permanently safe which is a critical factor. If it was and players could mine/craft as much there as they do now simply by buying the required resources from the market and building whatever they bloody well feel like other than capital ships, the economy would get broken very fast. What I said mainly meant that if you did have an Eve-like game with the same level of crafting and hisec/nullsec space but the hisec area was 100% PvP-free, you would have to limit how much miners and crafters could do there to avoid breaking the economy, such as not being able to start a manufacturing job on anything beyond a tech 1 cruiser and relevant equipment.

I don't really see it being an issue as long as there are more and rarer materials in low sec the economy would stay balanced. If some one want's to take 10 times longer aquiring the mats and or money to make better ships that's fine and it wont break the economy at all. It's more likely they will be buying materials from the people operating in low sec anyway. The only reason to want to pop people in high sec is for cheap thrills it has nothing to do with the economy at all.

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I dont think that high-sec ganking has any significant impact on the economy. If there is a small impact you could easily adjust the existing money sinks (fees and such). I also dont see, how highsec ganking does prevent the carebears from any action, which could imbalance the economy. Of course, balancing a player driven economy needs a fully different loot & reward system for quests in a sandbox. I mentioned that already. Whenever EVE-economy was unbalanced lately, it was coming from lowsec or 0.0.

Dont get me wrong. I myself dont care about highsec-ganking. I was never stupid enough to become a subject of it. But I see that a lot of potential players are scared about it. So i am very convinced, that a clear separation of huge PVE and even huger PvP zones is crucial for a worthful and peaceful coexistance of PvP and PVE in one game. Every game of the last decade made it wrong and failed in this department. They either have lame PvP or they destroyed their PvE population and ended with an unhealthy PvP-population in an unhealthy game.

I am also fine with the UI. I just see that potential customers are not.

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Originally posted by Xzen

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Take EVE, but with avatars on a planet. A huge Continent as big as entire GW2 which is fully safe (no highsec-ganking). Now add even bigger wastelands (0.0) around this continent with PvP ffa, terraforming, city-building, ships and ship combat, farming, planting, breeding, taming and all that stuff. The devs may do these huge wasteland with a generator. I dont care how it looks initially. We will change the world anyways.

Now add tons of dynamic events everywhere. Of course, the better events would be on the safe continent, where the devs can control the state of the environment. But adjust the loot&reward-system so the player-driven economy is not harmed. THIS is imho the main problem, if merging sandbox and themepark into a hybrid sandpark. I would even not care if you add a personal instanced story for the carebears on their safe continent. However i guess some epic quest-lines like in EQ1 or an Extended kind of EVE Cosmos Missions should work, too.

In this game you could be fully safe, but no hand-holding, bcause its very complex, no instant gratification, because this would ruin the economy, and no easy mode, because life isnt easy. Its a complex world simulation.

This game would have one important critical success factor of EVE: the PvE-guys are fully safe and can play their game, which means lots of paying customers and a happy provider. But some of them will try the wastelands. A lot will do, like they do in EVE finally. At last partially. And that means healthy PvP-population.

My ideal game right there.

And this is why you guys don't generally have games you like.

I agree, it does sound awesome, but just look at the first paragraph. Right off the bat you are already taking a very large production (GW2), and asking a game based off that, with an EVEN LARGER production surrounding it?

Get realistic, please. That isn't going to happen any time soon.

The cost to make a game even remotely close to that would be at least a billion $$, and would take no less than 8 years to make. I just don't see that happening.

Start small. Thinking about a manageable game. You can even take a lot of those same concepts, and apply them to a smaller scale, and still have an awesome game. That's how great games get made.

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I dont believe ive been on a forum with so many people that have no clue as to whata sand box mmo is!! eve is the best example of sandbox mechanics youll find to date followed closely by mortal online. Its got nothing to do with questd items leveling or content!, its all about the tools players have ingame to allow for an unparaleled depth to emersion and control over and manipulation of practically all aspects of the game!, aswell as limitless interaction with other players whereonly the individual players ability of imagination is his/her only limitations. I can name only two games with these features; eve and mortal online, perpetual is looking promiseing too.

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Originally posted by AdamaiI dont believe ive been on a forum with so many people that have no clue as to whata sand box mmo is!!

You'll find there are as many people trying to force their definitions of "what a sandbox is" as there are trying to force "what an MMO is."

Different people, usually. But it's still probably #3 or #4 on the "top ways to always start an argument on mmorpg.com" list.

Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

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Originally posted by aesperus

And this is why you guys don't generally have games you like.

I agree, it does sound awesome, but just look at the first paragraph. Right off the bat you are already taking a very large production (GW2), and asking a game based off that, with an EVEN LARGER production surrounding it?

Get realistic, please. That isn't going to happen any time soon.

The cost to make a game even remotely close to that would be at least a billion $$, and would take no less than 8 years to make. I just don't see that happening.

Start small. Thinking about a manageable game. You can even take a lot of those same concepts, and apply them to a smaller scale, and still have an awesome game. That's how great games get made.

No, you are wrong. Thats why i said, the wastelands should be done with a generator. This is less beautiful than handmade theme-park content and partially repetititve. If you give the players tools for terraforming, planting, breeding and such, it doesnt matter. After a few years the former similar and repetitive landscape would look very different. Just look at different worlds in Minecraft.

It is much more expensive to produce tons of cinematic, fully voiced cutscenes with a good story, than producing thousands of squarekilometers of landscape with a good computer-tool. Dev-made content is expensive and never enough. Playermade content is rather cheap compared to this.

I fully agree with the start small approach. But this means: start with a small set of simple but genious tools, like Minecraft. But have a huge universe to use the tools in order to change the world and enable territorial GvG warfare. Btw, this is exactly how EVE started. It was a pretty crappy indie-game at launch. Not so crappy as others. Just a few tools but a huge universe. And then they patched tool after tool afterwards and extended the complexity of the world.

If I am looking to current indie-sandboxes, their feature list is endless and looks like a wet dream. But they never implement it. Most of them start with just a small set of sophisticated crafting and the rest is rather roughly implemented, buggy or non-functional. To be succesfull, its crucial to start with the right mix of well tested tools and have a clear plan how to expand from there.

A huge world, is not the challenge in a sandbox.

If ArenaNet would add such huge wastelands (nothing but landscape, stones, trees and animals) to GW2 in order to enable territorial warfare, i estimate it would be less than 10% of the total budget. Of course it would not work: GW2 is a themepark. They have no appropriate sandbox tools and no player driven economy or a sandbox architecture at all. But producing the rough landscape with the generator is cheap and easy.